


The Many Dimensions of Valeria Hughes

by 4246FeetBelow



Category: No Fandom
Genre: Compilation, Damien Novak - Freeform, Dimensions, Evan Hansen - Freeform, Maddie Williams - Freeform, Multiple Dimensions, Multiple Realities, Multiple Universes, Valeria Hughes - Freeform, compilation of short stories, your real is not real
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-09-29
Updated: 2020-09-29
Packaged: 2021-03-07 18:00:58
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,677
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26711833
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/4246FeetBelow/pseuds/4246FeetBelow
Summary: All is one and one is all. The mystical ways of the universe are not wholly understood, and the ways that all of the many universes interact is not wholly understood. Reality is vast and complex, and the complexities only expand as we narrow in on a single life, one being, spread across many dimensions through time and space, existing both as one and all.This is a compilation of short stories following Valeria Hughes, as she is most often referred to, and the vastness of each individual being. Secret societies, realities beyond comprehension, and realities that are all too familiar drag Valeria on a whirlwind adventure of life, death, consciousness, and the very fabric of reality. Each part begins with a distant dream as we travel through them into new dimensions.





	The Many Dimensions of Valeria Hughes

I woke up to a high-pitched ringing in my ears. I had this odd feeling of being and not being all at once. When I opened my eyes my room was dark, save for the tiny bit of light streaming through my black-out curtains. I could see shadows of objects in my room. My desk, my television on its stand, my bookshelf overflowing with well-cared for favorites of mine, though I haven’t touched them in about a year.

I almost sat up but recognized the feeling of a heavy, sleeping creature in my arms and stayed put. My loveable Pitbull lay in my embrace, snuggling as close as he could to me. I smiled at him, feeling only love and happiness as we took comfort in one another. I closed my eyes and almost drifted off when I remembered the weird feeling I had upon waking up. It came back full force then, almost as is summoned by my memory. As though thinking of it reinforced it.

I pulled myself away from little Dragon, feeling extremely uneasy then. His name, though odd, matched his personality really well and endeared everyone to him even more. He was fierce and loyal, and the name usually brought a smile to my face. This morning that was not the case, as my general discomfort grew.

I stood and flicked a switch on the wall, stumbling over to my floor length mirror as my room was flooded with light, startling Dragon. He jumped up, very suddenly alert after slumbering heavily.

I stared into the mirror, looking into my own eyes and trying to place the source of my odd feelings. Like staring into myself would reveal the secrets I felt were concealed. All I saw was me.

Shoulder length blonde hair, pale green eyes. A fairly ordinary appearance. A nose that I felt was slightly too big for my face. My hair was messy but straight and did not have enough volume for my liking. Whereas I did not feel any particular way about my face, I knew my body was fairly above average, with a good figure that people frequently commented on – enough to where I was pretty confident in it, which is saying something when confidence is something difficult for me to come by.

I sighed, the odd feeling settling in my stomach and making me feel a little ill. I ignored my own unease and let Dragon outside. He happily sprinted out the back door into the fenced backyard and went to business surveying the area and ensuring that no stray bird remained. I watched him for a few moments, relishing in the fact that his life was happy and uncomplicated.

I decided to get ready for the day, not that I had much to do aside from cleaning and preparing my own meals. I frequently slacked at both tasks anyway, lacking motivation for much anything most of the time.

My phone rang and I glared at it, hardly feeling up to answering any calls. My bad feelings remained like a stone in my stomach. For a moment I thought about not answering, but the curiosity of who might be calling at 10 AM proved too powerful.

Looking at the Caller ID, I realized it was just a number from my area. No one that I actually had in my phone. Typical. I grumbled, “Fucking scammers…” But answered with a bright tone. “Hello?”

Static answered me for a minute. I waited. And then, “Is this Miss Hughes?” It was a woman with a friendly voice. I had a weird feeling of déjà vu, more about the sound of her voice than the actual situation.

I swallowed; the ringing I heard this morning suddenly returned with increased volume. “Uh, yeah?”

“Hi, how are you today?”

I struggled to grasp why I was still on the phone with someone I didn’t know. I didn’t talk to many people nowadays. I think curiosity was getting the better of me still. “I’m…” I thought briefly about lying, but suddenly felt like I should be honest. Not that this person had any business knowing how I really felt. “not great. I don’t feel okay.”

The woman on the other line was silent.

I felt awkward suddenly. She didn’t actually want to know how I was feeling, she wanted a generic, ‘Great! How are you?’ Why would she care about my vague yet pressing discomfort? “Um, may I ask what this is about?” Now I felt stupid and on the verge of hanging up.

“Oh! Yes, um, just one moment while I transfer your call.” The line clicked, and I faced simple silence broken only by quiet ticks indicating I was on hold.

I scoffed, about to hang up, but someone else responded almost immediately. “Hello, Miss Hughes! We heard you aren’t feeling quite well today. May you please explain what it is about today that has you feeling unwell?” It was a man with a chipper voice. He seemed polite and like he was genuinely interested. Something about his voice made me dizzy, though. I couldn’t shake these odd reactions to nothing.

I scrunched my face up in confusion. My ominous feelings were getting stronger and drawing a bit of panic out of me. “Why is that any of your business?” I said it politely, but could not hide the suspicion in my tone.

“Miss Hughes, I assure you I am here to help, I do not mean to make you uncomfortable.” He sounded so professional, but I was suddenly being washed in waves of extremely powerful fear. He seemed like he was waiting for something. Waiting for me to say something specific.

“W-what’s going on?” I asked, my voice tinged with hysteria. “What’s happening? Who are you?”

“Valeria,” the man spoke softly, voice gentle and calm. “there is no cause for panic. Is there something particularly different about today?”

My heart threatened to burst out of my chest, and I wondered why it didn’t just do it. “Different how?” I snapped, my fear turning slowly to rage as I was having a difficult time understanding what was happening to me, and what was happening at all. I was breathing so fast, and my panic was becoming so all-consuming that holding on to pleasantries seemed ridiculous.

The man sighed, realizing that he was not getting through to me in the way he wanted to. “Listen, Valeria, I know exactly what you are going through right now, okay? I’ve been there, and this isn’t easy for anyone. I need you to trust me though. You don’t understand what’s happening, right?”

I fumbled the phone and almost dropped it. That made me realize how sweaty my hands were, and that I was shaking horribly. “What’s happening to me? Am I going to die?” I cried, my whole body was almost convulsing. Flashes of what I thought were memories began flashing in my mind. Me running, running from horrible creatures in pursuit. A man named Damien, holding my hand and cradling me as someone I loved lay dying next to me. One of the creatures over me, pulling my own entrails out for me to see. It even spoke, but I could not recognize what it said.

No, this was the dream I had woken up from, I realized, not memories. Even now the details were fading and changing as my brain substituted some of them to fill the gaps. The most vivid ones, though, held firm.

“Valeria, are you with me?” The man demanded, as though he had tried a few times to get my attention.

“I… no. I don’t understand what’s happening… I need help…” I said weakly. I heard Dragon barking softly at the door. I welcomed this distraction and let him inside. He seemed to sense my distress, and comforted me by rubbing his nose on my hand.

“Okay, I need you to listen to me carefully. You are going to be okay here, alright? Nothing is happening that isn’t supposed to happen, it is just the way. May you please give me your current address?”

No, my mind said to me, that doesn’t sound right. But he sounded so sure and together, and I was suddenly becoming unsure of what was real. I decided for snark instead of an answer. “Don’t you have that on record or something? Seeing as you just know what’s going on?”

The man paused. “819 W. Silver Fox?”

Oh. I gulped. “Okay, yeah. Who… Who are you? Are you a doctor?” I asked. I realized that this whole situation was terribly odd. A stranger calls me on a day where I start experiencing vague but horrible symptoms and they can coincidentally help and they already know where I am. I had a paranoid thought about being an escaped CIA experiment and they were just coming to retrieve me. It almost made me laugh.

He hesitated again, this time for a bit longer. “My name is Damien Greely. Keep your wits about you, okay? I know this is all very confusing and frightening.”

Now, I gasped, some remnant memories from my dream flooding into me. “D-Damien!” I shouted, feeling betrayed for some reason. “But I don’t know a Damien. Except for in… in my dream.”

“I know,” Damien said. He did not seem like he wanted to provide any more information. This was confirmed when I waited for more and he didn’t utter a word.

“What does that mean?” My heart had slowed a bit, but my malaise was still going strong. It felt like the whole world was suddenly going to end, and I could do nothing but talk on the phone to people I felt I knew but had no way of knowing.

Damien seemed as if he were trying very hard to figure out what he could say that wouldn’t set me off again. “This is something very new to us, meaning everyone involved, and we are trying to work out how best to handle it. What we know is that you experienced something very horrible and terrifying. And yet _you_ didn’t.”

“My agents are pulling up, may you let them inside? I know this would be easier for them to explain to you than me.”

I froze. “Agents…?” Oh shit, am I a CIA experiment?

I ran to the front door and moved the curtain aside to peer out of the window. A man and a woman in very discreet clothing were speaking next to a white SUV, not yet making their way to the door. “You did not send some FBI or CIA agents to my house.” My voice was suddenly cold, becoming threatening. Despite my attitude towards Damien, my terror was singing inside of me. If I was being detained, it would go without saying that I had no defenses against it.

“Not exactly, they are no kind of agents you’ve ever met or known. In any universe. But since we are together here, and we have these people at our disposal, we are going to use them, Valeria. Does that make sense?” His voice was still calm and collected. He spoke firmly, as though he always expected my answers to be obedient and obliging.

“Not really,” I looked back out of the window, the “agents” were starting to walk up. They didn’t exactly look like agents to me, but they had an air about them that was serious. Despite the baggy sweatshirts, jeans, and hats that obscured a great amount of details regarding their physical appearance.

Damien sighed softly. He didn’t seem mad or frustrated, he just sounded weary. “I’m going to let them take over, they can explain everything that you’re feeling. And what’s going to happen next.”

The agents knocked on the door, sending Dragon into a fit of barks. The ringing in my ears that I had gotten sort of used to increased, bringing my attention to it again. “What do you mean?” I asked over the barks. I didn’t want to wait for answers or get them from anyone else. I certainly didn’t want to let two strangers into my house to find out what was wrong with me.

Damien said nothing else and hung up.

My fears and worries started to make me feel sick again. I swallowed thickly and put my phone on a table beside the door and grabbed Dragon, attempting to sate his concern for who was outside. They knocked again, and he growled. “Quiet,” I said harshly, pulling him away and opening the door hesitantly.

“Hello…” I muttered, feeling anxious.

The woman smiled generously at me. She had long and curly black hair, a pair of stylish sunglasses obscured some of her face. Her complexion was extremely pale and she was tall and thin. He clothes were pretty discreet, as I thought before. Plain pair of blue jeans, black sweatshirt, plain black baseball cap, and a pair of sensible tennis shoes. No logos or details really stood out.

The man next to her wore similar clothing, just a pair of blue jeans and a black sweatshirt with a plain pair of sunglasses and a plain baseball cap. His hair was short and dirty blond, and he had a good three inches on her height. He did not smile, but looked terribly grim from the expression I could see. They were both about my age, early twenties, and looked athletic and healthy.

The woman spoke first, and I realized we had all just been standing there staring at one another. “Hi, sorry. Damien sent us to speak with you? Help you get some things figured out? I was the one on the phone with you at first. My name is Maddie, this is Evan. We’re here to help,” She stated, letting herself inside.

She gasped and excitedly started petting Dragon, who didn’t want to be pet and wanted to play instead, grabbing his bone fiercely and taunting her with it. Evan let himself in as well and closed and locked my door, finding a seat on my modest little tan couch.

I almost forgot to be indignant because I was so uncomfortable and overwhelmed with my very odd feelings. “You can’t just invite yourself into someone’s house.” I snapped, my head spinning. “Why does nothing feel real?” I wavered on my feet, and Maddie dragged herself away from Dragon to help me sit down in a small worn out recliner next to the couch.

“Sorry, I forget that while things are familiar for me, they won’t be for you.” She made sure I was comfortable and took a spot next to Evan. They both discarded their hats and glasses to the other side of the couch, not leaving them much sitting room. 

“What the hell does that even mean? You all talk so weird…” I rubbed my face with my hands, and on a strange urge, looked at my hands. I was struck. There was nothing particularly odd about them. Two thumbs, the right number of fingers – two normal hands. But I couldn’t stop what came next. “These aren’t my hands.”

Maddie and Evan exchanged a look. She took the lead. “Well, not really, no. This is essentially not you at all. Yet it is. Just not the you that you are used to. And we-” she gestured to the two of them, “are not the people you are used to, and yet we are.”

Instead of asking more questions, I glared at her hopelessly. I couldn’t put my hands down, I couldn’t trust them.

“So, this will sound nuts, okay? But basically, there are multiple dimensions and realities. We all knew each other in this other dimension, but we’ve died and somehow ended up with memories of it in this one. Memories that feel like a distant dream now. But we all knew each other in the other reality, and the three of us found each other and you were the only one missing. But we found you!”

I reeled. Who are these crazy people? “I think you should leave,” I said, my unease was making me sick again. The odd spiel Maddie just went on only made me doubt them more.

Maddie shook her head. “You were fine yesterday. You were fine weeks ago when Damien and I talked to you when we first realized what was going on. Today you were different, and you must have dreamed of something right? Do you remember anything from your dream?”

“I never talked to you,” I said incredulously. “I think I would remember you guys.” I thought about any strange calls I had received recently, and only remembered scammers trying to get me to buy a warranty for my “vehicle” or stupid endorsement campaigns.

“No, we talked to you. And you didn’t give us the time of day, and you seemed completely unassuming.” Maddie continued. “You got angry and ranted at us for scam calls, because in this reality, we never knew each other. But in the one before, the one that we died in, we knew one another since the beginning.” Dragon, realizing no one was going to play with him, dropped his bone and went behind the couch to pout.

I closed my eyes and Maddie stayed quiet for a moment. My mind was weary and I felt like I was swimming in circles. My dream started to come back, and I remembered Damien again. I remembered him by my side, telling me jokes and hugging me. I remembered something vague that did not come with visible memories, but the memories were of feelings. There had been a deep relationship between Damien and I. Which was odd because the details were having trouble staying straight. Suddenly, my mind manifested Maddie and Evan in some parts of my dream as well, and I snorted.

“I’m delusional,” I murmured, opening my eyes. I realized I was facing the ceiling, staring up at the stained old tiles.

I felt a hand on my knee and barely moved my head to see it was Maddie. “Do you remember me, Valeria?” Her voice was soft, almost afraid. Like I wouldn’t remember her. And I didn’t, because this was stupid and crazy and made no sense.

Maddie’s eyes were pleading with me. But I was firmly rooted in the real world, not this fantastical nonsense. Without moving anymore, I forced a stony expression. “No, I do not remember you. Because I have never met you before. This has been a super weird start to my day and I would like to forget about it now, so could you just leave?”

I registered hurt on both of their faces. What did they expect? The more I thought about it – and the more I pushed my dream out of my mind – the more ludicrous their claims became. I continued to dredge up actual memories, things I could easily grasp and understand.

I lived a pretty lonely life. I had friends at work, we goofed off doing stock and working the register in a small local grocery store. We never hung out outside of work, but I could recall many memories with them. I remembered my mother and father, who had passed away about ten years ago in a very tragic accident. This actually distanced my siblings and I, as our childhood had been great together, but the real world was so harsh and ugly. We couldn’t connect after that. Dragon was my link to life, and gave me reason to keep going. I mostly kept to myself and watched tv shows and played games when not working. But that was the real world. That was reality. That was _my_ reality.

The more I reached for these memories, the more my unease settled and receded. Oh, that was it? It diminished to the point that, now in control of my emotions, I felt absurd.

Evan was almost chastising, which nearly made me laugh because I didn’t _know_ the guy. What gave him the right? His voice was harsh when he spoke. “I denied it too. Don’t release it just because its painful. Or because you’re afraid of what it might mean. This has been hard for us all. But there is only one way out, and that way is through. You cannot get around it.”

My head jerked at a particular thing that he had said, sparking an odd memory within me.

Damien, looking fierce and determined in the low light of a setting sun. The clouds behind him appeared effervescent, glowing red and undercut by shadows. He was coated in blood, blood that almost appeared black. It covered a good portion of his cuts, scrapes, and open wounds. His clothing was tattered, some of it simply hanging in strips. But I had never seen him filled with more life. ‘The only way out is through,’ he had said. This was moments before his death, I mysteriously knew. 

I was staring at Evan, lost in the memory. Lost in the pain it caused me. I started to feel ill.

“Remembering something a mutual friend of ours said?” Evan offered a wan smile. “That was kind of his favorite thing to say,” He appeared distant. Then, suddenly, “IS! Is his favorite thing to say…” His eyes shined.

I grit my teeth, speaking through them. “I don’t buy this,”

Maddie piped up. “Then can I tell you the story? Maybe jog your memory?” Her face was earnest.

I considered this. The memory had shaken me a little bit. My method of reaching for memories backfired in a way that I discovered something that confirmed their story. And I did remember Damien. Somehow, I knew it was not just a dream. I was recalling actual memories. Maddie and Evan had not appeared in any solid memories of mine, but my resolve had cracked. I needed to understand what was happening.

I cleared my throat, making Maddie flinch. She was so tense and I hardly noticed. “You can tell the story, then.” I said, almost regretting my words the moment they left my lips.


End file.
